Bug 27383

Summary: Brightness applet shows corruption
Product: xorg Reporter: Bryce Harrington <bryce>
Component: Driver/RadeonAssignee: xf86-video-ati maintainers <xorg-driver-ati>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: high CC: nobled
Version: 7.4 (2008.09)   
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Attachments:
Description Flags
XorgLog.txt
none
xdpyinfo.txt
none
CurrentDmesg.txt
none
BootDmesg.txt
none
karmic-brightness3.png
none
lucid-brightness3.png none

Description Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:00:07 UTC 
Forwarding this bug from Ubuntu reporter dn:
http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/543489

[Problem]
When the brightness changes the gnome panel pops up a window (the brightness applet presumably) but the window shows only corruption (see attached images).

[Original Description]
In Karmic, whenever the screen brightness changes (manually via hotkeys or automatically after the laptop is left idle), a blank white square covers the upper left corner of the screen and then disappears. In Lucid (testing beta 1 livecd), instead of a white square, what looks like a corrupted notification window shows up.

Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Mar 21 11:27:41 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
DkmsStatus: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
GdmLog1: Error: command ['gksu', '-D', 'Apport', '--', 'cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log.1'] failed with exit code 1: cat: /var/log/gdm/:0.log.1: No such file or directory
GdmLog2: Error: command ['gksu', '-D', 'Apport', '--', 'cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log.2'] failed with exit code 1: cat: /var/log/gdm/:0.log.2: No such file or directory
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100318)
Lsusb:
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8187 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187 Wireless Adapter
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05dc:a410 Lexar Media, Inc. JumpDrive 128MB/256MB
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Gateway MT6457
Package: xorg 1:7.5+3ubuntu1
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true file=/cdrom/preseed/hostname.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: xorg
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic x86_64
dmi.bios.date: 11/01/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies LTD
dmi.bios.version: 84.05
dmi.board.vendor: Gateway
dmi.board.version: 84.05
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gateway
dmi.chassis.version: Rev.1
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologiesLTD:bvr84.05:bd11/01/2006:svnGateway:pnMT6457:pvr3408447R:rvnGateway:rn:rvr84.05:cvnGateway:ct8:cvrRev.1:
dmi.product.name: MT6457
dmi.product.version: 3408447R
dmi.sys.vendor: Gateway
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system: codename:           lucid
 architecture:       x86_64
 kernel:             2.6.32-16-generic

[lspci]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200M] [1002:5975]
    	Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device [107b:0367]
Comment 1 Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:01:23 UTC 
Created attachment 34568 [details]
XorgLog.txt
Comment 2 Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:01:41 UTC 
Created attachment 34569 [details]
xdpyinfo.txt
Comment 3 Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:01:59 UTC 
Created attachment 34570 [details]
CurrentDmesg.txt
Comment 4 Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:02:12 UTC 
Created attachment 34571 [details]
BootDmesg.txt
Comment 5 Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:06:23 UTC 
Created attachment 34572 [details]
karmic-brightness3.png
Comment 6 Bryce Harrington 2010-03-30 17:06:39 UTC 
Created attachment 34573 [details]
lucid-brightness3.png
Comment 7 Michel Dänzer 2010-03-31 01:33:06 UTC 
Is the white square really a feature of the GNOME panel applet (or anything else in Ubuntu), not the BIOS?

If the former, does disabling compositing / RENDER acceleration / ... have any impact on the problem?
Comment 8 Bryce Harrington 2010-04-01 13:26:59 UTC 
On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 01:33:08AM -0700, bugzilla-daemon@freedesktop.org wrote:
> http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27383
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- Comment #7 from Michel Dänzer <michel@daenzer.net>  2010-03-31 01:33:06 PST ---
> Is the white square really a feature of the GNOME panel applet (or anything
> else in Ubuntu), not the BIOS?

If it was the bios, wouldn't it look the same in either karmic or lucid?
In the two screenshots for the two different releases, the corruption is
somewhat different.
 
> If the former, does disabling compositing / RENDER acceleration / ... have any
> impact on the problem?

I've asked the reporter to join the discussion here to give this test
feedback.

Thanks,
Bryce
Comment 9 Michel Dänzer 2010-04-02 10:35:08 UTC 
(In reply to comment #8)
> If it was the bios, wouldn't it look the same in either karmic or lucid?

*If* it's the BIOS, it's touching the GPU behind the backs of any of our drivers, and basically all bets are off.

> In the two screenshots for the two different releases, the corruption is
> somewhat different.

So do you know which component of Ubuntu is producing that notification, and what it's supposed to look like?
Comment 10 Bryce Harrington 2010-04-02 11:42:13 UTC 
Hmm, well the only thing that normally displays in that space is the Applications menu, but the white box is far too small.  The Ubuntu OSD's for volume, brightness, power management, etc. all display elsewhere on the screen.

dn, can you give some further insights into what this might be?  Could it just be that your hardware's BIOS is buggy?
Comment 11 nobled 2010-04-04 16:19:28 UTC 
> If the former, does disabling compositing / RENDER acceleration / ... have any
> impact on the problem?
Original reporter here -- I did set "Visual Effects: None" to disable compositing, and it still happened just the same.

Are there any further tests I should try to see if it's the BIOS?
Comment 12 Michel Dänzer 2010-04-06 04:24:36 UTC 
(In reply to comment #11)
> Are there any further tests I should try to see if it's the BIOS?

Some ideas:

* Does the popup appear in console?
* Is the popup captured in screenshots taken e.g. with the GNOME screenshot tool?
* Does the popup also appear in other operating systems?
* …
Comment 13 nobled 2010-04-06 14:07:05 UTC 
(In reply to comment #12)
> * Does the popup appear in console?
Yeah. (tested with Lucid beta1 with kernel modesetting on) Once I switched to a console and pressed the brightness-adjust hotkeys, it came up as a white square. When I switched back to the desktop, when it appeared it was a white square instead of the corruption that was there before I changed to a console.
> * Is the popup captured in screenshots taken e.g. with the GNOME screenshot
> tool?
No, nothing. (again, Lucid beta1, kms on)
> * Does the popup also appear in other operating systems?
I'm downloading a Fedora livecd image now.
Comment 14 nobled 2010-04-06 16:56:45 UTC 
I found a workaround: Just suspending and resuming, with KMS enabled. Tested with Lucid and Karmic.

After suspending and resuming, it starts showing the same notification as when running Windows (so... BIOS-related?): a blue rectangle in the upper left corner showing 'bars' (like a wireless signal) representing the current brightness level.

(The bug happens in the Fedora 12 LiveCD too, in the few seconds before it threw a "No root device found" error that stopped it from booting.)
Comment 15 Michel Dänzer 2010-04-08 01:22:38 UTC 
So it's clearly a BIOS feature. It'll be hard to do anything about it without more information about how it works, maybe Alex knows something.
Comment 16 Alex Deucher 2010-04-08 07:00:57 UTC 
(In reply to comment #15)
> So it's clearly a BIOS feature. It'll be hard to do anything about it without
> more information about how it works, maybe Alex knows something.

I'll ask the bios guys.
Comment 17 Christopher M. Penalver 2016-02-24 05:47:01 UTC 
Original reporter hasn't responded to information request in 2 years.

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